Plants acaulescent or nearly so (with dense rosettes of leaves and cluster of sessile or subsessile heads). Stems absent or very short, simple, stout, fleshy, very leafy. Leaves: blades oblong to oblanceolate or elliptic, shallowly pinnately lobed or sometimes unlobed, longer spines slender, less than 1 cm, abaxial faces green and ± glabrous to white-tomentose, adaxial faces green, glabrous or villous with septate trichomes. Heads 1-many, sessile or subsessile, crowded. Involucres 2-3 cm. P hyllaries: outer and mid lanceolate to ovate, spines slender, 1-4 mm; apices of inner linear-acuminate, often twisted, entire or minutely toothed. Corollas pink to reddish purple, 22-30 mm, tubes 10-15 mm, throats 5-7.5 mm, lobes 4-7 mm; style tips 3-5 mm. Cypselae 4-4.5 mm; pappi 17-28 mm. 2n = 34 (as C. congdonii).

Flowering summer (Jun-Aug). Meadows, springs, stream banks; 1500-3100 m; Calif., Nev.

Variety congdonii grows from the Sierra Nevada of western Nevada and eastern California to the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California.